


Slouching towards Bethlehem

by Albion19



Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Dreams, F/M, psyche myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 07:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16321559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albion19/pseuds/Albion19
Summary: Mallory dreams of a man as the world ends around them.





	Slouching towards Bethlehem

Her name means the unlucky one. Who names a child that? One who knows what is in the stars for a child whose bloodline sprouts up seers like mushrooms after rain. 

Mallory for example came into the world not with cries of rapture but winces of apprehension. Her mother, no more a child herself, breathed her last as little Mallory took her first. The pregnancy had been marked with an uncanny swiftness, eerily pain free and her mother had died with a smile. There had been no father, possibly just a drifter in the night.

Once she was old enough Malory had asked about the nature of her name. Raised by a strange grandmother she had been told with a frankness possibly too blunt for a child of six that she was destined for a rough ride, in fact a first class ticket right to the end of the world. Her great grandmother had foreseen it coming and nothing could be done to stop it. They had tried.

“Your great granny saw it in a dream. A huge pale snake taking you for a wife as the world burns. A man with no mortal father. You will marry a monster.”

Mallory had been scared but reminded herself that she liked snakes, even big ones. But soon after she had started to experience oddities that drove this dire prophecy from her mind. One morning her grandmother’s ancient cat had awoken as a very spry kitten, much to everyone’s surprise. Rose bushes bloomed in snow, Halloween lasted a solid week and once, after getting lost in Sears, the entire population of her town had frozen until she had found her grandmother in a parking lot.

Time was a malleable substance for Mallory, sometimes she could shape it as she saw fit, while at others it slipped through her fingers like smoke. Once she had stepped out of her preschool and it had disappeared behind her. Only the stone steps remained, all else was charred timbers and ash. This terrible wasteland stretched at every side and so Mallory had squeezed her eyes shut and said the magic words her granny had taught her.

“Go away! Go away! Go away!”

When she opened her eyes the world was back as it should be, the trees leafy and children running around happy, not curled up like bits of burnt toast. She had ran home and told her granny, who only nodded in weary acceptance. She had not experienced a vision but rather stepped into the future, a future that could not be changed.

“I will! I can!”

“You could Mally…but there’s a beast out there waiting for you. An ugly white thing that wants to wrap his body around you and squeeze.”

Mallory shook her head, scared but defiant. “If it tries I’ll just turn him back into an egg.”

Her grandmother smiled but there was nothing happy in her eyes. “I think this egg might just take everything you have to crack it sweetie. Ah, don’t mind your head about it! You hungry?”

Mallory was and so they had eggs and French toast. Mallory asked for seconds.

*

Years passed and thoughts about the end of the world and white snakes became less and less important, less likely. For the first time she was not some unlucky girl but a gifted witch. A prodigy. She had friends – though some of the girls thought she was a freak and teacher’s pet – Mallory didn’t care. She was happy and the future appeared bright. Even within a month of her start at the school there were whispers about her becoming the next Supreme. Mallory had initially been excited but then a dream reminded her that her future did not include partaking of the Seven Wonders but witnessing the destruction of them.

*

The tree was huge, it’s canopy lost in smoke while Spanish moss swayed from boughs above them. Red apples carpeted the ground for miles, some blackened so it appeared the grass was clotted with blood. The smell was ripe and heady as they writhed, bodies streaked with sweat and soot. He would not allow her to see his face because she would not show him hers. It seemed fair. The hills around them burned and the sky was a radioactive bruise. He growled into her ear when she parted the clouds and allowed the sun to shine. Darkness settled again as he kissed her lips.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said and his voice was smooth.

She touched his curled hair. “I’m offering you a chance to live.”

But he only shook his head. He pushed into her and the dead rumbled below them, crying out as judgement descended. She raised them from the earth but then put them back to sleep at the feel of his fingers around her throat.

“They don’t deserve to be saved.”

“Do you?”

He didn’t answer, just kissed her throat where his fingers had been. Tenderness settled between them, an acceptance of what they were trying to accomplish. Together they could start anew, no God and no Devil, no fallible human morality but a divine order of their own.

Let it all burn away and then let something new grow.

*

This faceless man, the white snake that had been foretold as a terrible monster, visited her most nights. They would make love and then she would rest her cheek against his smooth chest. His heartbeat was steady and strong below her. His fingers played with her hair as they watched the earth blanketed in ash and creatures prowled in the shadows.

“They don’t dare come closer.”

“Poor things.”

“They’d eat you alive given the chance.”

“The best meal they’ll ever have,” she murmured and his chest jerked in laughter. Her flesh would burn them from the inside out.

“Only I can eat you,” he slithered down her body and spread her thighs. His face was obscured by a haze, no features discernible but she could feel his intensity, his childlike possessiveness. “No one but me.”

She pursed her lips. “Is that fair?”

“I rebuff everyone and everything for you. I wait.”

She knew it was true. She was a virgin and while she could do what she pleased with it she always felt that she had to wait. He echoed the same. Under the tree as the world smouldered and finally grew cold they slept.

*

Mallory told no one of her dreams but every night she yearned for sleep and to be back in his arms. A small part of her, a seed of darkness, waited in anticipation for the end of the world. It was the only way to meet him.

From darkness things grew, who said it had to be terrible? She was not cruel or a coward. She could and would make the world bright and good.

*

“Good?” he scoffed. He sat with his back against the tree, Mallory wrapped in his arms.

“Do you want the world to be like the old one?”

“No, that’s why I ended it. No rules or hypocrisy, just freedom.”

Mallory sensed the world beyond and found nothing, not even the wretched monsters. “It’s just us.”

“Not for long,” his hand cupped her stomach and a chill swept through her. What sort of child would be born into a world of nothingness? Her grandmother, before she died, had told her that the white snake would devour her child as soon as she gave birth and then her for good measure.

Mallory stood, hands protecting her stomach, and stared at the man who caused the world to end. He did not want to show his face because he was a monster, a white faced demon and she would know that all his talk about starting anew was false. He just wanted chaos, blood and darkness.

She stepped back and slipped, falling in the apples. He reached for her but she dug her fingers into the ground and shouted.

“Go away!”

The earth parted around her and took her in deep, leaving nothing but fresh soil.

*

Michael woke with a groan, his hands curled into fists. He had been digging at the earth, trying to pull her back to him but she was gone. Blue roses grew from the earth where she had been before suddenly exploding into clouds of butterflies. They engulfed him and he screamed as sunlight shone.

He inhaled and rubbed the heel of his hands into his eyes. “She can’t undo it, whoever she is. I don’t need her.”

She was a witch and he will wipe every coven from the earth to take her down. Nothing would stand in the way of what he was born to do.

*

Mallory knew what she had to do, what she had been born for, and so when her true Supreme enfolded her into a desperate plan she accepted.

Michael Langdon would have no idea what was in store for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I read this theory on reddit that Mallory is linked to the goddess Psyche and thought it was so interesting. In the myth it's foretold that she would marry a monster but in reality he's actually beautiful. Just a little spin on that.


End file.
